The need for speed

Whenever I get to the part of any official-type document or questionnaire that asks for your occupation, I often wonder what it would be like to be able to fill in something amazing like "rock star" or "dolphin trainer."

Lifelong Carpentersville resident Dennis Erb doesn't have to wonder. He gets to fill in "race-car driver."

Erb, 34, is a graduate of Dundee-Crown High School who earned a degree in manufacturing technology from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

But it was what he learned from hanging around his father's garage that set his career path in motion.

His father was a Dirt Late Model race-car driver, and ran at tracks such as Sycamore Speedway, Santa Fe Speedway, Kankakee, LaSalle and other ovals throughout the Midwest. He had a repair shop as well.

"He was kind of like a weekend warrior racer, where I'm trying to make a living at it," Erb said.

"I grew up with racing ever since I was a little kid and I always wanted to race.

"As I got older, I started working on my dad's cars and getting them ready for him. Then I started driving. It's been like a lifelong dream for me to do."

His first race was in September 1990 at Santa Fe Speedway in Hinsdale.

According to his wife, Michelle, who attends many of his races, the two Erbs were a team until his father's death about nine years ago. It was at that point that Erb decided to turn his racing career professional.

As I write this, Erb, a Dirt Late Model racer like his father, has had 18 feature wins in the 2007 racing season. He won four races, was the winner of the points championship at the United Midwest Promoters Summer National Series and is currently in second place for the National Points Championship.

"I'm a little bit behind from leading, but we still have another month and a half to go on the points so I've been trying real hard to close up into it," he said. "I'm hoping I get a shot at winning that."

Erb's main car is a Monte Carlo with a chassis built by C.J. Rayburn of Indiana. He has two other cars and a hauler with a workshop that he takes on the road to participate in races throughout the South and Midwest.

His season starts at the end of January in Florida and Georgia and continues through March in Tennessee and Alabama. Then he heads back to the Midwest and races through November.

"We go anywhere from small quarter-mile racetracks to big half-mile or five-eighths. The bigger the racetrack, the bigger the speed," he said.

"Our local deals are maybe 120 miles an hour. On some of the bigger racetracks we've been clocked at about 170."

Erb finds himself lured back to the track by the challenges presented, both behind the wheel and under the hood. Each track has its own unique conditions, and preparing the car to perform according to what's under the tires is part of the fun.

"They start off early in the night a little tacky and wet and the mud starts flying. Then it dries out as the night goes on," Erb said.

"When that happens, you have to change the car to make it go around the track in the wet and in the dry. It's a challenge to get through those transitions throughout the night.

"Then we start racing down South and we get down into the Tennessee area and Alabama and Georgia, and they have different clay and dirt down there. So like I said, it's a challenge to get the thing working right each place you go," he said.

But it's also, of course, about speed and competition.

"It's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun. I enjoy driving them, working on them," he said. "There's a whole lot of stuff to do to these things to make them go around the race track, to be competitive.

"It's not like you just jump in and drive it. There are set-ups to do with them, there are shocks and spring changes, there are different types of geometry for the cars to make them get around the track good.

"To go home and work on stuff like that -- to get your car better -- it's always a challenge."